


Too Dead for Dreaming

by powerspring



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Reunions, what we all deserve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-24 14:53:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16177364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/powerspring/pseuds/powerspring
Summary: The reunion my heart deserves.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the current show canon that Arya and Jon know they will be reunited, but neither Arya nor Gendry know the other is even alive. Mash of book and show characterisation because I can't tell the bloody things apart in my head anymore. Title from Bob Dylan's 'Mr. Tambourine Man'.  
> 

 

 

 

 

Jon was first through the gates.

 

Arya remembered the day, lifetimes ago, when her family was still whole and stood together as King Robert’s contingent rode under the arch of Winterfell. She remembered the grand lines of knights and guards and banner men and trumpeters that had preceded the king’s arrival, the fanfare and decorations and beautiful array of fine clothing and armour.

Jon was dressed for battle, a sword at his hip, only the great fur draped about his shoulders as any sort of dress. It brought a fleeting smile to her lips when she saw the way his hair was tied back. For a moment as she stood next to the remnants of her family and stared at him, examining him like he was one of her assignments from the Many Faced God, she felt like she was outside of herself. She had never dreamed of this moment as she slept, but she felt as if she did now, felt her face slip back into the cool mask she wore when she played against the waif, sensing the tide of emotion on her horizon and shuttering herself away before it could break land, disinterest and indifference making her feel like a spectator in a play. Then his bright black eyes met hers, and his face morphed into such an expression of joy that she’d almost forgotten people’s faces were capable of. 

 _Arry, Nan, Weasel, Ghost of Harrenhal, Cat of the Canal, No one_ \- they melted away like snowflakes on her tongue and suddenly she was just Arya Horseface, the youngest Stark girl who played at swords and ran through mud in dresses and loved her half brother Jon more than anything in the world. She didn’t know what her face looked like but she could feel her smile hurting her cheeks as they stretched into an expression they hadn’t known in over five years. She felt like a child as she raced forwards just as Jon pulled his horse to a halt and swung down heavily. He’d barely turned around when she tackled him with enough force to push him back into his charger, leaping up to throw her arms about his neck and burying her face into the great cloak around his shoulders. She felt it on the back of her neck as all the breath left him and he stood, stunned, for half a heartbeat before crushing her in an embrace so tight she almost choked for air. Her eyes hurt and she didn’t know why, couldn’t place the strange burning until she felt warm wetness on her cheek and realised with subdued shock that she was crying. She couldn’t remember the last time she had really cried. All the things she had seen, blood and death and dire wolf heads, she had thought she was numb, but this feeling of utter joy was so new and so old at the same time, something half forgotten and half remembered, and the shock of it was so palpable that she felt the tears were wrung from her eyes without her permission. She clung to Jon with all the strength in her arms, breathed in the damp, mouldy scent of his snow covered furs and listened to his uneven breaths like they were the first sound she'd ever heard. When he eventually loosened his arms the deepest instinct reared within her, an instinct that made her cling a little bit tighter, fear shooting through her stomach. She’d lost so much, first her family, then her pack, and Jon - Jon had always been the most important, and the part in her that still felt fear was convinced that loosening her grip now meant she’d lose him again. After a beat she gathered her head and stepped back to look him in the face.

“Hello, little sister” were the first words he said to her, and though just by looking at him she could tell he was a changed and hardened man, the way he spoke through his smile made him sound just like the teenager she’d left behind at Winterfell.

“See you hung on to that sword?”

She grinned back at him with pure joy and opened her mouth to answer him when suddenly all coherent thought fled her brain.

 _It can’t be_ was the next one that filled it. Amongst the men and horses that had followed Jon through the gate, staring at her over her brother’s shoulder with a unreadable expression, his hair too short and his face white with cold, was the face who’s vengeance was responsible for more than half of the names left on her list.  _Gendry._

 

 

 

 _I’ve never seen her smile like that_ was the first thing Gendry thought after he finally laid eyes on Arya.

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

 

 

_I’ve never seen her smile like that_

 

He’d never seen her cry, either. She was doing both now, staring up at the King with shining eyes and a smile so bright Gendry felt compelled to grin too. He didn’t.

_Lady Arya,_ he thought. Not Arry. For this was a girl he’d never seen before. Her hair was long like a woman’s would be, and though she wore clothes more fit for a man they were still of the finest make to match the Kings', her face clean and her hair brushed. He could barely believe she was real.

He had known they were coming to Winterfell, had known he would finally see the place she had once whispered to him about in quiet moments, the place that, in a better world than this, she would have made it to safely all those years ago. He’d barely talked to the King but to exchange brief narratives of their time apart since the ambush at Eastwatch, had never even mentioned her name, and he felt like someone was playing a cruel joke on him, like her face might fade away and men around him would laugh and he’d wake up again on the frozen ground where they had made camp last night. Then her eyes met his over the King’s shoulder, and he knew that this was not a dream. There were too many years between now and then for his mind to still be capable of summoning up the way her eyes looked as she stared at him, her smile slipping slowly from her face like the way the snow melted over fire.

 

  
She knew Jon was looking at her confusedly, heard him through the ringing in her ears ask her “Arya? What is it?”, noticed it in a sort of detached way when he turned to find whatever she was staring at, and then turned back to her, his face more puzzled than ever. But for the life of her she couldn’t tear her eyes away from her blacksmith, sitting atop a massive bay destrier, his face still impassive. She’d seen far more strange and shocking things in her time since he’d left her, but for some reason her brain still struggled with the information her eyes presented it with.

_He’s dead,_ she thought. _He’s supposed to be dead. That’s why I needed_ them _dead. The Red Woman wouldn’t have left him alive._ She knew she was skilled at reading people, but she struggled to place his emotion. The only word that came to her mind was apprehensive. Gendry looked at her liked she truly was a wolf, subdued awe and wonder and surprise mixing with the fear that she might tear his throat out. She pushed gently past Jon and trod silently across the frozen mud, approaching him the same way she might a wild rabbit, carefully and quietly. Gendry swung stiffly down from his horse and took a few slow paces towards her. The awe was slowly breaking through more and more on his face. She stopped when they were an arms length apart, as she was forced to tilt her chin up to continue looking him the eye. She couldn’t smile, couldn’t speak, couldn’t _breathe -_ and then he shocked her into flinching as he dipped his head and spoke his first word to her in over five years.

“ _Milady”._

 

Gendry heard his own voice as he spoke the word, knew it was flat and formal, the riot of emotion within him tamped down by his apprehension like so much hot metal plunged into water. He watched annoyance flicker to life across her face and then suddenly, before he could blink, she lunged forward swift as anything and he was on his ass in the snow.

He cursed aloud as he landed. “You” - she bit the word off with her teeth and glared down at him.

“Where in _seven_ hells have you been?” And despite the way she looked and the title he knew she held, suddenly she seemed just like the tiny scrap of dirt covered fury he’d once known, and his teeth hurt in the cold as his smile took shape.

“I could ask the bloody same of you!”

She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling now too - smaller, more careful than the one she’d shown the King, but a smile all the same.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Marking this as completed now! Maybe if the show reunions disappoint I will be inspired to write more, but for now, that's us! Thank you so much for reading, I appreciate every one of you.


End file.
